Roses

I hope your precious sky falls down on you tonight,
Cause even with a smiling face, you cannot mask your lies.
And even though the pain heals quicker with a rose,
I’ll never understand why it’s a red one that you chose.
Even though it’s but a dream, through this stream I’ll surely row,
I don’t know where this journeys ends, but I know it’s time to go.
I’ll peel off the petals for all the times you’ve loved me not,
And I’ll leave a trail behind for all the times that you 'forgot'.
And when you follow, follow close, so you can know all that you’ve lost,
And I will give up every hope, that you could somehow pay the cost.
And when I come to the bridge where I'll have to face the troll,
He’ll let me through and he’ll take you, your life has paid my toll.
I’ll row along and sing this song of love I’m sure to write,
While even through this tale of loss, I’ve found the strength to fight;
I miss you, Love, I always do, and you know I always will.
But if I stay, your breath of lies will freeze my world still.
And so I watch the blood bleed from your bright bouquet of thorns,
They are the tears that I’ve been crying since the day your heart was torn.
Tears of love, tears of joy, from the one who gives me life,
And even though I’m leaving now, I’ll always be your wife.
I’ll close the eyes of who you love, she’ll open them and then,
She screams out the other’s gone- she’ll never be again.
She holds the rose that was the payment for your lies,
She lets it go as memories inside of her heart die,
She runs her finger in the stream; She almost reaches sand,
She lifts it up and it pulls back, the ring that’s on her hand.
She reaches down to tear it out, but she knows that there’s no hope,
The sands of time, that stole her life, have bound her tight with rope.
He finds her lying on the sand; her heart left in the stream,
And through it all, he’s hoped and prayed this life is but a dream,
He goes in to fish it out, but the damage has been done,
He wished he had let her know she was the only one.
He wakes up, and throws away, the notes with names and numbers,
He tiptoes back; a simple noise would wake her from her slumber,
He lies back down; the light goes out; with a kiss upon her nose,
The toll is paid, she’ll wake today, with nothing but a rose.

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Editor’s Note

The number one question our editors receive is—what do the editors and judges look for when judging the contest? The number one answer we give is creativity. Unlike prose, writing composed in everyday language, poetry is considered a creative art and requires a different type of effort and a certain level of depth. Of the thousands of poems entered in each contest, the ones that catch our judges’ eyes are the ones that remove us, even just slightly, from the scope of everyday life by using language that is interesting, specific, vivid, obscure, compelling, figurative, and so on. Oftentimes, poems are pulled aside for a second look based simply on certain words that intrigued the reader. So first and foremost, be sure your poetry is written using creative language. Take general ideas and make them personal. In his infamous book De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Wrong, W. D. Snodgrass imparts, “We cannot honestly discuss or represent our lives, any more than our poems, without using ideational language.”